The present invention relates to training software, and more particularly to training a user to validate assumptions on which his or her decisions are based.
The behaviors, assumptions and attitudes of police officers are strongly influenced by the overall xe2x80x98culturexe2x80x99 of the service. The police service culture has been established and reinforced over many years. Police officers naturally tend to tolerate and conform to the behaviors, assumptions and attitudes common to the culture. They may find they are most effective as police officers if they behave in the way the culture demands, or they may feel they have to do so in order to xe2x80x98fit inxe2x80x99 and feel comfortable around fellow officers. They may not believe themselves to be acting or thinking in accord with any culture, and the actions in question may not be overt, conscious or deliberate. That is the nature and influence of an organization""s culture and the way it is shared amongst the organization""s members.
This is not unique to police service. Most public institutions, and likewise private sector firms, develop a culture of their ownxe2x80x94with prevailing behaviors, assumptions, attitudes and vocabulary amongst their employees. Such a culture can be a positive strength. It can attract people to join and stay with an organization, and it can help people work well together in performing the organization""s business.
Efforts to change the weaknesses in a culture must not destroy the strengths that help give an organization its effectiveness. But a culture has a problem when some of its consequences come to be judged unacceptable. For the police service, that public judgment has been reached, and is acknowledged by senior officers and officials.
The common thread of unacceptability is a police service culture with behaviors, assumptions and attitudes that fail to accommodate the differences between individuals, or worse, that are based on stereotypes of race, sex, age, or dress. It has been stated that it was not enough for police officers to be fair and to avoid acting on stereotypes by treating everyone the same. Instead, the challenge is to treat everybody as individuals.
Whilst the nature of policing is unique, this challenge of individualizing the treatment of all members of the public is not unique to the police service. It is one that is shared by many other public servantsxe2x80x94by tax inspectors, employment and benefits advisers, fraud investigators, and all others who must offer public services to people with individual needs and circumstances, and must do so with equity.
For police and other public services, changing behavior towards individuals requires awareness of diversity amongst members of the public. But awareness of diversity does not produce change without the breaking down of old habits of behavior and action, and without the acquisition of new skills, including:
being able to recognize one""s own stereotypes and false assumptions about other people
knowing how to determine quickly the important circumstancesxe2x80x94emotional as well as physicalxe2x80x94of each individual
understanding how to deal with people according to these circumstances, as well as according to the equity of relevant policies and procedures.
These skills and behaviors are not easy for anyone to acquire, and it must also become a new habit for officers to apply them in both routine and exceptional circumstances on duty. Achieving this re-skilling and breaking down of old habits is at the heart of the challenge at hand.
It is a challenge similar to the one faced by many private sector companies seeking to win and retain consumer business. The nature of the diversity that needs to be recognized by a business may be different, and simpler, than that which the police service must recognize. The opportunity may exist for businesses to decide to ignore some apparently xe2x80x98unprofitablexe2x80x99 individuals; a moral luxury police service cannot have. And for the private sector, the consequences of failure to individualize treatment are seldom matters of life, death or basic human dignity for the individual concerned. At the center of individualized treatment is the awareness and validation of assumptions which may tend to cause the treatment of people in a generalized manner.
A system, method and article of manufacture are disclosed which implement a training session for training a user to validate assumptions. First, a plurality stimuli are presented to a user in the context of a simulation. The user is then prompted to enter responses to the stimuli which are subsequently recorded. The user is then allowed to enter assumptions that form a basis of the responses. Next, the user is prompted to enter information on how to validate the assumptions which is subsequently received. Feedback is then outputted based on the stimuli and responses. Such feedback relates to appropriate assumptions and information on how to validate the appropriate assumptions. As an option, the feedback may be further based on a number of assumptions entered.
In one embodiment, the stimuli may include a prerecorded audio clip, a prerecorded video clip, an animation, a graphic, a text presentation, a real-time audio stream, and/or a real-time video stream. Further, the user may be automatically prompted to enter the assumptions that form the basis of the responses and the information on how to validate the assumptions.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the simulation may include a police call regarding a situation with the stimuli including images of at least one person in the situation. Further, the responses may include questions for the person in order to collect evidence pertinent to the situation. The user may be prompted to enter the responses to the stimuli by listing a plurality of responses, and allowing the user to select between the listed responses.
As one aspect of the present invention, the stimuli and the responses are displayed after the receipt thereof in the form of a transcript during the course of the simulation. Similarly, the assumptions and the information on how to validate the assumptions may be displayed after the receipt thereof during the course of the simulation.